Step 8 !!!!!!

Step 8!!!!!! For those of you who do not live in "adoption world", this means we are one step closer to our daughter. We were initially hoping to maybe be able to travel with the An Giang group that is leaving next week, but we are not able to. We have a few more hoops to jump through. We are so excited to see more babies being introduced to their forever families. It just doesn't get better than that. We are praying for all the many families traveling this holiday season.

As far as everything here, we sent off for our Visas last week, and they should be arriving by the end of the week. Again, every little step helps. Now that we have gotten our travel packet there are some things to do. We know how many gifts to buy for the orphanage workers, and some more detailed packing instructions for Garrett and me. We are still praying that we will be able to travel before Tet. The Vietnamese holiday that will stop all travel during the month of Feb.

Now that Christmas is only a week away, I am getting really excited. The boys are at the perfect age for a really fun Christmas. Yes, we believe in Santa!!! We also bake cookies with Aunt Candy on Christmas eve, wrap our own gifts, put reindeer food on the driveway ( oats), sing as loud as we can to Christmas songs that have played for the 50th time in one day and watch all those fun Christmas movies. The boys are 4 and 6, and they are really into all of that. They are having fun picking out gifts for their loved ones, and at least trying to keep it a secret. Keaton has a hard time with that.

Our favorite tradition is having a birthday party for Jesus on Christmas night. After all the presents have been opened and food has been eaten we have a party. We do cake, ice cream, candles and even sing the birthday song. When Easton was very young we told him that Christmas was when we celebrate Jesus's birthday. Of course being 2 he said. "Then where is the cake and ice cream?" From that year on, we have never forgotten.

We will keep you all posted and let you know what is going on. Hope everyone has a great week.